2014 Social Media Conferences: 15 to Attend Before the Year Ends

There’s still time left to attend 15 different 2014 social media conferences!

It’s been awhile since I updated my most recent best social media conferences list, but hopefully you were able to attend what has shaped up to be the best social media conference of the year back in March: Social Media Marketing World. Even if you already attended that, or another social media conference, with the ever-changing nature of social media there are plenty of conference to keep you busy for the remainder of the year. Note that while it is not a true physical social media conference, the folks at Social Media Examiner who produce Social Media Marketing World also produce a similarly compelling annual virtual event that will be held in October 2014 called the Social Media Success Summit.

I’ve personally selected either those that I recommend you attend or those that I will be speaking at. This year I have tried to be more global in focus as well as recommend some conferences that fall out of your typical “social media” or “business” conference.

Conferences are presented in order of when they are occurring for your convenience.

The Corporate Social Media Summit bills itself as the largest and most senior meeting of social media and marketing execs, giving you unrivaled insight into how social can drive your business growth & competitive advantage. The specific deliverables from attending this conference include:

Unique Customer Experiences: Attain a 360 degree understanding of your customer to humanize your response and build long term relationships

Sharpened Performance: Measure and refine your social approach to maximize value for your customer and efficiency for your business.

Featured Speakers: Chief Communication Officer of Miller Coors, Chief Marketing Officer of Century 21, Head of Global eBusiness of Met Life, Chief Communications Officer of the Dow Jones & Company, Senior Director US Communications of McDonalds, Vice President of Communication and Outreach for Southwest Airlines, and Vice President Content and Social for Citibank North America.

There are a number of Social Media Strategies Summits occurring worldwide in 2014, a few of which are included as part of this blog post. The Summit brands itself as being an event in which over 4,000 marketers have attended, with 85% of attendees being manager level or higher. Thus, at SMSS, you will meet valuable business contacts among marketers facing the same social media and business challenges as you.

Speakers are handpicked to provide relevant, real-life insights and best practices into building and maintaining powerful social media plan that aligns with your business strategy. Focus of the summit is centered on education and case studies – you won’t hear any sales pitches.

Featured Speakers: Digital Automotive Consultant for Audi AG, Press Officer for Social Media for the Council of the European Union, Marketing Director EMEA for Starbucks, Director of Digital Communications for Bosch, Manager of Social Strategy & Activation EMEA for Hyatt, Digital & Social Media Manager for HSBC Expat, Digital and Social Media Manager for Renault Deutschland AG, Online Reputation Manager for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Manager of Local Business Outreach for Yelp, and Head of Digital Marketing for Samsung.

I’m looking forward to traveling to Vienna to speak at this conference on the topic of B2B Social Media Strategy. The conference itself is unique in that it will cover social media in a broad, enterprise perspective by having keynotes focused on innovation and marketing as well as the Internet of Things. Tracks are divided into enterprise apps, digital marketing, and interactive. This conference will provide you one of the broadest perspectives from attending any conference on this list.

I am honored to be speaking at this conference this year on the topic of Maximizing Google Plus for Business. DFW Rocks Social Media is about bringing knowledge to businesses in Dallas, but with speakers flying in from around the country, you should consider attending this conference wherever you live. This conference is probably one of the most practical on this list, with a mission on educating business owners and corporations marketing teams on exact strategies to Leverage Social Networking Sites Effectively, Drive Website Traffic, Increase SEO, and much more.

Social media is making a big impact on approaches to business, to practice in education and to our analysis and understanding of society. The rapid adoption of mobile platforms for social media is generating ‘big data’ which allows new and exciting insights into these phenomena. This first European Conference on Social Media seeks to establish a platform where academic and professional approaches to this rapidly expanding field of online activity can learn and share. Drawing on best practice in social media we will call on interested parties, be they practitioners, scholars or doctoral students, to bring together and share examples, cases, theories and analysis of social media.

Featured Speakers for this conference will primarily come from higher education institutions such as the University of Sheffield and the University of Wolverhampton, both based in the United Kingdom.

I was able to attend a past Social Fresh conference in San Diego, and I found it to be a refreshingly different high quality yet extremely intimate social media conference. The Social Fresh conference is a single track event which has all attendees in the same room and all speakers on the same stage. Each speaker get 25 minutes for their session, not an hour, forcing them to focus on specific topics and drop all the “fluff.”

Featured Speakers: Jason Keath, Sarah Evans, Jay Baer, Amber Naslund, Carrie Kerpen, Social Media Manager for Dunkin’ Donuts, Senior Director of Social Media for Yahoo!, Leader of the Social Media Team for JetBlue, Senior Content Marketing Manager for LinkedIn, Communications Manager of Digital & Social Media at FedEx Services, Social Media Leader for the PGA TOUR, Global Director of Social Marketing at Spotify, and Global Social Media Manager for Logitech.

(see same conference in Amsterdam on June 18-19 for detailed information)

Featured Speakers: Manager of Social Media Insights for American Airlines, Social Media Analytics and Listening Manager for Dell, Global Social Media Manager for IBM, Senior Director of Digital Communications for Walmart, Digital Marketing and Social Media for Halliburton and Head of Global Social Media Marketing for Cisco.

Content Marketing World is the largest content marketing event on the planet. It’s the one event where you can learn and network with the best and the brightest in the content marketing industry. You will leave with all the materials you need to take a content marketing strategy back to your team – and – to implement a content marketing plan that will grow your business and inspire your audience. One look at the sheer volume of quality speakers that will be attending should make this the one “must-attend” conference if content plays an important role in your social media strategy.

INBOUND’s purpose is to provide the inspiration, education, and connections you need to transform your business. Thousands of marketing and sales professionals from almost every industry imaginable and from all corners of the globe will attend the conference, which in 2013, we had 5,500 attendees from 35 countries. Learn the newest marketing strategies from top presenters. Walk away with tools to do your job better and inspiration to do great things. You can also sign up for one of four full-day, pre-conference trainings designed to help you master content strategy, website creation, inbound marketing basics, or inbound sales.

If you’re involved in the financial services industry, this is the must-attend 2014 social media conference. Financial rulings and regulations continue to focus in on Social Media usage guidelines. Financial Service Institutions have been slow to approach the opportunities that exist within social media, but the time has come to press forward into the new digital frontier. New platforms continue to emerge, and the benefits of social engagement highly out way the risks. This unique “conference” will provide a training course that will guide you through the social media adoption process by providing marketing strategies, legal advice and industry case studies on how to navigate social media effectively.

Featured Speakers: Senior Counsel for Wells Fargo & Company and Director of Social Media for John Hancock.

(see same conference in Amsterdam on June 18-19 for detailed information)

Featured Speakers: Digital Marketing Officer for Sears Holdings, Director of Market Insights for Hewlett-Packard, Director of Global Corporate Communications for Royal Caribbean Cruises, President & CEO for Orabrush, Digital Brand Manager for the University of Southern California and Global Head of Social Media for Discover Financial Services.

The Social Media & Society Conference is an annual gathering of leading social media researchers from around the world. From its inception, the conference has focused on the best practices for studying the impact and implications of social media on society. The conference offers an intensive two-day program comprising of paper presentations, panel discussions, and posters covering wide-ranging topics related to social media. Organized by the Social Media Lab at Dalhousie University, the conference provides attendees an opportunity to exchange ideas, present their original research, learn about recently completed and work-in-progress studies, and strengthen connections with their peers.

This year is their 6th annual conference and it’s their biggest ever. They’ve recruited the top social media experts for this special event–just for marketers and business owners. They’ll share exactly what works so you can immediately implement new social media tactics and strategies to grow your business. There’s no travel because it’s all online. Forty-five of the world’s leading social media pros will be summit instructors.

The Inbound Marketing Summit encompasses all things digital – from social media marketing, to executing mobile marketing campaigns, to web publishing – through a series of multimedia case studies and keynotes. The conference attracts a core group of Web, social and content marketing visionaries, influencers and attendees who love to get together, and share ideas via quick hit, keynotes and case studies.

Featured Speakers: Director of Alumni Digital Engagement at Harvard University.

I am honored to be speaking at this conference together with Jason Miller, Senior Content Marketing Manager for LinkedIn, on the topic of LinkedIn Marketing. If your company is in a B2B industry, this is the must-attend event and is the only one on this list focused on business-to-business companies. With technology and the way we live changing rapidly, B2B marketers have so many options and tools that it can be overwhelming. In B2B social media marketing style, the mission of this conference is to provide you enough information to bullet-proof your marketing for the future.

Featured Speakers: Scott Stratten, John Haydon, Amber Naslund, Christopher Penn, Vice President of Global Marketing for SAP, VP of Content for Hubspot, Manager of Global Influencer Engagement & Advocacy Marketing Strategy at IBM, VP Marketing and co-Founder of Marketo, Vice President of Marketing for Xerox Global Services, Chief Marketing Officer for General Electric Healthcare IT, and Senior Director of Content and Engagement for the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

This conference will be organized the same as Social Fresh East but with different speakers. As a reminder, the Social Fresh conference is a single track event which has all attendees in the same room and all speakers on the same stage. Each speaker get 25 minutes for their session, not an hour, forcing them to focus on specific topics and drop all the “fluff.”

(see same conference in Amsterdam on June 18-19 for detailed information)

Note that the BlogWell conference has been renamed a members-only conference for socialmedia.org members and therefore has not been included on this list of public conferences. In addition, past entries iStrategy and Online Marketing Summit are not holding social media conferences in 2014.

Until we publish our best social media conferences of 2015, here’s a preview of what’s ahead:

This is a comprehensive 3-day social media marketing summit that addresses the toughest challenges marketers are facing in social media marketing, customer service, employee engagement, measuring ROI, and more.

This educational experience moves far beyond the basics of social media; you’ll leave with a fresh perspective on the digital marketing landscape, and key strategic insights on how social fits in with corporate objectives.

Top reasons to attend this event:

Network with VPs, Directors and Managers, Communications, Digital Marketing, Branding and Business Strategy

Harness social data & social identity to drive business value and keep your brand competitive

The Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Maximize Social Business, Neal Schaffer is a leader in helping businesses and professionals strategically maximize their use of social media. Neal is the author of three social media books, including the recently published definitive social media strategy book Maximize Your Social. Forbes lists him as a Top 35 Social Media Power Influencer and AdAge lists his blog, Maximize Social Business (formerly known as Windmill Networking), as a top 100 global marketing blog. Neal provides social media strategy consulting and coaching, having worked with Fortune 500 companies and a Grammy-award winning musician. He has presented worldwide on social media at more than 150 events and also teaches social media marketing at Rutgers University. +Neal Schaffer

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About Neal Schaffer

The Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Maximize Social Business, Neal Schaffer is a leader in helping businesses and professionals strategically maximize their use of social media. Neal is the author of three social media books, including the recently published definitive social media strategy book Maximize Your Social. Forbes lists him as a Top 35 Social Media Power Influencer and AdAge lists his blog, Maximize Social Business (formerly known as Windmill Networking), as a top 100 global marketing blog. Neal provides social media strategy consulting and coaching, having worked with Fortune 500 companies and a Grammy-award winning musician. He has presented worldwide on social media at more than 150 events and also teaches social media marketing at Rutgers University. +Neal Schaffer

Comments

Great List Neal I must say I was not aware of all of these, and was actually thinking we don’t have enough conferences here in Europe. You proved me wrong! I was actually just at the Fusionmex conference in Antwerp this week, with Jay Baer and Lee Odden, was quite an info packed day. Well worth getting out of the house to a conference now and then cheers ashley